All posts tagged ‘Winter solstice’

Yule is a holiday of winter solstice. Originally celebrated by ancient pre-christian Northern Europeans, over time it has been absorbed into many winter celebrations and observations. Yule is is a festival of light and shares qualities with the holidays of other religions found at this same time of year, including Hanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. All of these holidays recognize the principles of light, rebirth, and joyous expectation of the coming new year.

The Yule log is an old winter solstice tradition and often the highlight of solstice night. Traditionally the log was acquired off of your own property or received as a gift, as you were not supposed to purchase your Yule log. Once a log was selected it was decorated with evergreen, holly and other seasonal green plants found on hand and placed in the fireplace.

It was then set to light with a piece of wood saved from last year’s Yule log. In this way the fire from this night was linked back to all those other fires that had gone before, all lit from a piece of wood saved from the previous year. Then the log was left to burn throughout the night and allowed to smolder for 12 days after.

This month’s Printable Fun is a Yule Log coloring page. Click on the image above or here to download the PDF. Then print, color and decorate for Yule!

As a kid growing up in Alaska, winter solstice was a much-anticipated and much-welcomed event. Winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, marks an important change in the rotation of the earth – and for those who live closer to the poles, an important change in daylight. In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun will now start to shine a bit more each day. In Alaska that meant that even though the days would still be cold and snowy for months and months to come, you could at least count on a few more minutes of daily brightness.

Starshine Cookie, photo by Jessamyn

People often ask me whether all that winter darkness was depressing. It really wasn’t, but largely because I didn’t know any better! To me, the extremes of the solstices were just a fact of life. When I visited my grandparents, I found Colorado to be a wondrous place where the sun rose for several hours a day in the winter. And, traitorous star, it actually set in the summer. I also didn’t learn until I was nine that Easter egg hunting in the snow is not normal for most Americans. My childhood was different.

Kids can understand Earth’s rotation, as well as the solstices and equinoxes, through a simple exercise with a pencil, a roll of toilet paper and a flashlight. Sketch the continents on your roll of toilet paper, then place the roll on the pencil, which serves as the axis. One person can hold the flashlight, standing in for the sun. The person in charge of the rotation should revolve around the sun tilting North America toward the sun for the summer and away from the sun during the winter.

When the toilet-paper learning fun is over, make some cookies! These Starshine Cookies can be made with any roll-out sugar cookie recipe. Make a hole in the cutout shape using a smaller cookie cutter or household object, then place the cutouts on a foil-lined cookie sheet that has a light coating of non-stick cooking spray. Fill the holes with crushed Jolly Ranchers or LifeSavers. Breaking with a hammer is awesome.

Fill the holes with crushed candies, photo by Jessamyn

Bake as usual, but allow the cookies to cool for an extra amount of time in order to remove them without damaging the stained glass effect.

Photo by Jessamyn

While they are cooling, check out this fantastic time-lapse video taken a week after winter solstice in Fairbanks last year.

Yeah, that was my childhood. Even though I live in the Lower 48 now, I still love the winter solstice and the extra daylight that it signifies.

Not only is tonight’s total lunar eclipse the only one of 2010, it’s the first one any of us on this planet have seen in almost three years, and it won’t happen again until 2014. This one’s also a little extra special by being the first one to happen during a winter solstice in half a millennium. So take an afternoon nap, make some hot chocolate, and find a good spot for late-night eclipse watching.

The 72 minutes of totality will be visible from all of North and South America, as well as much of Europe and part of northeast Asia.

Credit: F. Espenak, NASA

Although it technically starts earlier, you won’t see much happening until around 1:30 a.m. ET (6:30 UT). If you want to catch the “total” part of “total eclipse,” you’ll have those 72 minutes starting around 2:40 ET (7:40 UT).

And if it helps you feel less guilty about keeping the kids up all night, turn it into science class. I went to many a late-night astronomy lab in college–sometimes sleep must be sacrificed for the stars.

If you have an Android phone, try out Google SkyMap for identifying the stars and constellations.

Take pictures. If you’re not too confident with the camera yet, this guide might help.

For kids more interested in history than science, send them to NASA’s list of eclipses of historical interest. Have them talk about how it would feel to have experienced an eclipse like this if you didn’t know why it was happening.

Total lunar eclipses are my favorite sort of eclipses. Solar eclipses are fun, but you can’t look at them without a tool, even a quick homemade one. And the moon changes colors. Good stuff. Where’s my tripod and hot chocolate?